- Game Dashboard goes galactic - 15 March 2023
Good news! Game Dashboard is now the official gaming tool of the galactic empire. We got the promotion since our predecessors were accidentally choked to death due to minor occupational hazard, during the latest quarterly performance review. According to the managing supervisor's report: "The software was slow, bloated and incomplete. They have failed me for the last time." To commemorate, the emperor has mandated a grace period of generous Steam sales starting with the Spring event, as part of his comprehensive package of inflation reduction activities. The new holo-trailer is available here. For the empire!
- Update v1.2.4 - 25 November 2022
Standard update with a new crosshair feature and some important fixes/improvements: Added sharp Crosshair feature. Maintains edge quality regardless of settings, so it may be preferable to the one from the game. Standard crosshair can often be disabled with a game console command (e.g. Source engine games). This is unfinished and for demonstration purposes (e.g. settings are not saved); let us know if the feature should be kept, as well as recommended shapes and other suggestions! Fixed input issues introduced in the last updates (e.g. GUI could process a key twice in rare cases). Shortcuts are also more insulated from the game (e.g. F12 doesn't interfere with the default Steam screenshot shortcut). A Key Bindings editor will be added in the next versions. Added option to re-synchronize with Core-Temp, to avoid having to restart the app/game in case it's not running in advance. Re-added…
- Update v1.2.3 - 11 October 2022
Unscheduled update with convenience additions, user-requested functionality and helpful fixes: Added feature to cycle the active profile using only the keyboard. It supersedes the previous frame-rate toggle feature, since it allows immediate modification of arbitrary settings without using the GUI. Added CPU temperature information as optional feature. This offers a good combination of security, efficiency and convenience: Users concerned about installing drivers (and low-level access to hardware) can ignore it and the rest is still available, but those who want the extra information just need to install Core-Temp and keep it running while playing. Added CPU brand and model information. Added option for easy reset of settings to default values. Fixed possible input synchronization issue in some games. Minor internal fixes. Documentation will be updated in the next weeks.
- Update v1.2.2 - 24 September 2022
Regular update with some new features that took precedence due to user feedback: Added full DirectX 8 support. Requested by Anonymous. Improved DirectX 9 support with uncommon configurations (e.g. hardware acceleration disabled). Added basic GPU fan speed control (by fixed percentage), for quick in-game adjustments. Requested by Michael. More elaborate control options may be added later, depending on user interest. Improved input handling in specific cases (e.g. activating within Nvidia Ansel). Improved responsiveness of some GUI items displaying hardware status. Small miscellaneous fixes and optimizations.
- Update v1.2.1 - 1 July 2022
Maintenance update with some important changes: Fixed compatibility with rare cases of DirectX 10/11/12 games with non-standard initialization (e.g. South Park titles). Fixed possibly incorrect window size calculation when switching between windowed and full-screen mode with the same resolution. Fixed possible silent error that could occur with modern Windows versions when running apps under Microsoft AppVerifier. Modified colors of all themes. Minor layout changes. Temporarily disabled the Override Buffers feature in DirectX 12 games, since it is currently unstable with that API when V-Sync is enabled. This is mostly to nudge users into using the latency slider instead, since it's stable and can be changed in real-time. edit: Details about the feature and recommended use guidelines now available in the updated manual. New features will be enabled in the upcoming versions.
- Update v1.2.0 - 20 May 2022
A somewhat elaborate update, with something for everyone: New Dark Theme is now available, with several enhancements to the old themes as well. Window size is now displayed, warning if there is a mismatch relative to the rendering output, which results in image quality degradation (can happen in games like Borderlands and Sekiro). Mouse handling now works correctly even in these cases. Added new Override Buffers feature, that can be used to minimize latency further and fix performance problems due to incorrect game configuration (currently doesn't support Vulkan; will be enabled later). Since it emulates app modifications it is still somewhat experimental, so if you run into issues use the Desktop Test to disable the feature before restarting the game. It is recommended to enable this when playing old DirectX 9 games with VSync, as it can result in noticeable performance and game-play b…
- Update v1.1.1 - 16 February 2022
Another regular update, with several improvements and an important fix for old DirectX 9 games: Fixed compatibility with some DirectX 9 games (e.g. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare titles). Reported by Anonymous, Ellis et al. Improved GUI responsiveness during initial activation. Combined GPU Selection and GPU Status tabs in order to make room for new tabs in future versions. Added Overview section to GPU and CPU information to make it easy/convenient to determine overall status immediately without having to expand sub-sections. Modified Desktop Test window size to blend with the automatic scaling features, making it more convenient for users with high DPI/resolutions. Small loading speedup, UI sharpness tweaks and 3rd-party component fixes and optimizations. New game-play related features should be available in the next version. Documentation will be updated soon.
- Update v1.1.0 - 24 December 2021
This update took a long time because of revamps in the underlying technology, and several experimental features (e.g. gameplay-related) are still disabled. Some will be enabled progressively in the next (smaller) updates. Change log: Fixed compatibility with Windows 11. New full-featured text-rendering engine: Custom representation for better edge sharpness at low font sizes. Real-time grid-fitting with optional monospace-font specific improvements. Specialized CPU/GPU compression to reduce file/memory size requirements. User adjustment of the base text-weight. Outlining and LCD sub-pixel rendering support (currently unused). It is configured to support quality rendering of arbitrary sizes and effects up to 8K resolutions, with either linear or exponential color blending, using a small block of GPU memory. If you need smaller or larger sizes send a message. Comprehensive optimizations o…
- Update v1.0.8 - 19 May 2021
Regular update with many small internal improvements: Modified the displayed framerate calculation so it's more accurate and easier to read. Should be consistent with what normally other tools display and players expect. Improved GUI (de)activation responsiveness in games that spam Windows functions incorrectly (e.g. Mafia II remastered). Also works as an optimization for those games (run better once the GUI is activated for the first time). Revamped window processing so it's more obvious where the tool is working. The GUI doesn't switch between windows automatically now unless users initiate it, and should make it more intuitive and reliable as nobody used that feature anyway. Re-engineered thread handling to add support for arbitrary number of simultaneous threads with active windows and possibly different settings. Technically this is overkill as games only use one window, but it sho…
- Update v1.0.7 - 24 February 2021
Regular maintenance update: Added framerate chart with cumulative statistics to facilitate benchmark runs (more detailed metrics for developers will likely be added later). Modified window processing to improve reliability when Windows is slow handling notifications. Fixed possible state inconsistency when expanding/collapsing some UI sections. Improved blending in specific cases of linear-color swap-chains (used by some games/apps). Minor miscellaneous tweaks. Modified initialization to avoid false positives warnings of some AV products that use common heuristics to artificially boost "detection" ratings. Added internal UI scaling features in preparation for larger upcoming update (e.g. improve visibility/customization with high resolutions, like ultra-HD).
- Update v1.0.6 - 6 October 2020
A small update with several useful improvements: Improved mouse processing in some games (e.g. Call of Duty series). General small optimizations (e.g. SSE2 now required minimum for 32-bit; use of system functions with lower overhead; mouse processing streamlining). Fix to allow viewing CPU/RAM data without valid AMD/Nvidia drivers. New features/tech are currently being tested for possible inclusion in the next full updates. As usual feel free to leave suggestions for improvements...
- Update v1.0.5 - 26 May 2020
Another somewhat comprehensive update, although many changes are not immediately apparent: Added CPU status: utilization and memory consumption. UI tweaks: font/color/layout improvements. Modified chart layout to reduce horizontal size in overlay (suggested by soyoker). Moved GPU clock information to Status tab for consistency. Data can also be added to overlay. Fixed processing of clock data for NVidia cards. Added customization of overlay transparency (suggested by soyoker). Improved loader efficiency with Desktop test: disabled Windows composition for reduced resource usage and delay-loading of DirectX until it's actually used. Improved processing for multi-GPU cases where drivers report same exact names. Cumulative statistics are now reset when data stream is interrupted (allows deterministic control when performing benchmark runs). Added clipboard support in user notes as convenien…
- DirectX 11 hotfix for Windows 10 - 11 May 2020
This is a fix for some DirectX 11 games (32-bit) when running in the latest versions of Windows 10. Thanks to community member SkyNET for detailed troubleshooting information! A proper update with new features will be available next week.
- Update v1.0.4 - 17 February 2020
Another relatively extensive update: New Dark theme. Apply in the Tools tab. Added Desktop Test to quickly demonstrate the overlay and modify settings without having to start games. Added new information and charts for graphics cards: fan speed percentage and shared memory. Additional developer-oriented debug data may be added later. Added cumulative statistics for current data session: minimum, maximum, average and standard deviation, displayed in charts. Helpful for benchmark runs. More chart customization: horizontal and vertical size tweaks (suggested by soyoker). GUI pixel/sub-pixel positioning and blending tweaks. Added ability to quickly toggle a specific framerate (suggested by Super Kiwi and emoose). Helpful for games like RDR2 where framerate affects video playback. Improved support for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 games using non-standard shaders. DirectX 11 rendering memory opt…
- Update v1.0.3 - 16 December 2019
This update took longer than usual due to the number of new features. Most user requests have been implemented, so keep leaving suggestions for new stuff... Real-time latency control for DirectX games. Improved theme with new styling features. Flexible storage system for user settings (the most requested feature). Optional Steam Cloud support (enable/disable via Steam). File access is still fully user-controlled and optional. Additional options for chart customization. User-defined custom notes can be added to the overlay (suggested by CamManx). Charts can now be added to the overlay (suggested by soyoker and others). Added generic support for GPU memory consumption (needed for AMD cards and possibly Intel cards in the future). Multiple GUI optimizations. DirectX 9 rendering optimizations. Note: For minor updates (e.g. hotfixes) it's OK to delay updating or update partially if you don't…
- Update v1.0.2 - 11 October 2019
New charts (bar, step, line) with style effects and focusing features. Improved timing at higher frequencies (in some common cases). GPU memory optimization and other minor performance tweaks. Many new features are almost finished but had to be cut due to time constraints. Be patient as great things are coming... Special thanks to everyone who leaves feedback/suggestions, buys the software or otherwise helps the awesome community. Your support is appreciated!
- Update v1.0.1 - 8 September 2019
New launcher system with better Steam integration. Unavailable status data hidden to avoid confusion. Minor optimizations. Thanks to the awesome community members for suggestions: Jushi, soyoker, DevingeL. The most requested features will be added to the next updates.
- Pre-release Update - 5 August 2019
There is going to be a small update before the public release: Reduced system memory consumption. Added alternative framerate adjustments and display by time interval. Added information for rendering API and resolution. Tweaks to the default theme. Improved mouse cursor handling for some games. Thanks to community member Jushi for testing and suggestions.
- Beta-testing - 18 July 2019
Since users showed interest in performing additional testing there is a limited set of keys available for those who would like to try it (preferably people with many different games and some QA experience). Add me to the friend list and send a message with the request and some information about the games. Thanks for your interest and support. edit: App is published and beta-testing is over.
